


Field Test

by LibraLibrary



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, POV rewrite, Spoilers for Who Is Gimoduck, basically gyro hatewatching the waddle conference and seeing the climax of the episode, give the science chicken character development 2018, idk he's furious with fenton at the start but maybe this'll teach him to appreciate his intern, y'all could maybe read this as pre-fenro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 18:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15297792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraLibrary/pseuds/LibraLibrary
Summary: Waddleduck. God, that was even more stupid than Gizmoduck.POV scene rewrite of the climax of Who is Gizmoduck, with Gyro watching it on the news from the lab. Possible character development ensues.





	Field Test

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in actual months and then I banged out four pages in less than two hours based on a plot bunny. Goddang.
> 
> Anywho I might write more stuff with recovering!Fenton at some point that might get into genuine Fenro slowburn but right now the nerd chicken is still a pillar of salt.

 The tv on Gyro’s desk had been turned to the daily Waddle press conference as always, popcorn and pep cans within reach to sip and snack and, upon any particularly infuriating remarks by Beaks, fling half full at the screen. Unfortunately, all the refreshments had already been sent airborne when Gyro flipped the table, screaming swears that would leave Donald blushing as that bastard, that unimaginable _bastard,_ had rolled onstage in that stupid armor and proclaimed himself to be Waddleduck. 

 

Waddleduck. God, that was even more stupid than Gizmoduck. Gyro kicked a spewing busted can into the wall, and Manny tapped out an admonishment as he chased it down to throw it in a trash bag with its dented and sticky brethren. Gyro grit his teeth, marching towards the storage closet and grabbing the mop, and furiously scrubbing at the floor as if erasing the consequences of his furious breakdown would magically make him less pissed off. 

 

This was why he’d told Manny to destroy the armor. He’d outright  _ said _ it, that he couldn’t let this tech fall into the wrong hands. God forbid they have to deal with  _ another _ B.U.D.D.Y system fiasco. But Cabrera-

 

Goddamn  _ Cabrera. _

 

In hindsight, Gyro was starting to think the suit had always been in the wrong hands. It wasn’t  _ built  _ for heroics, and it didn’t matter that the interns intentions were good, the tech just wasn’t  _ ready  _ for the grandiose acts he’d had in mind. Of course snatching the armor and running crying to Beaks wouldn’t change that. As infuriating as it had been seeing his tech, his  _ baby,  _ reduced to a glorified gofer for the lazy bastards of the city, he could still take a minute amount of sick, vindictive pleasure in knowing that Cabrera had to be losing his mind inside the suit. 

 

But now he couldn’t even have  _ that,  _ because Beaks had stolen the suit and the credit for himself, naturally. 

 

Lil Bulb stirred on Gyro’s shoulder, slapping his little palm on his creator’s face to redirect his attention back towards the television. The annoyed inventor groaned, steeling himself for whatever new stupidity that pretentious jerk was committing in  _ his  _ suit as he turned back to the tv. 

 

The mop handle clanged against the floor loud enough to make Manny and Lil Bulb jump, and Gyro scrambled for the remote to turn up the volume. 

 

Cabrera was back in the suit. The processor was sticking  _ out _ of the suit. And one of Scrooge’s nephews, the one in the red shirt, was sitting on the armor’s shoulders as he tugged in and rearranged wiring in the helmet of the suit. 

 

“What the  _ hell _ are they doing?”

 

It was obvious what they were doing of course; the kid was rewiring the suit to operate without the processor that was currently poking out of the chest of the suit, red and furious and most likely less than a minute from exploding (of course Beaks had overloaded, of  _ course _ ). But what on Earth did they think they could use as a replacement processor? Even with the volume all the way up, the news camera mic refused to pick up a single clear word of the conversation, and Gyro was ready to start screaming at someone who couldn’t hear him to get closer, for the love of god get closer!

 

Or, better yet, evacuate the entire city block, because the processor was a powder keg about to blow, and take the suit and everyone in a frightening radius with it. Of course the armor, and the moron inside of it, could almost certainly dispose of the volatile tech in time to save everyone if the kid could link up the suit with a suitable alternative processor, but what could possibly-?

 

On screen, the kid plugged two wires together, and was jolted off his perch by a violent burst of static, thrown into the waiting arms of officer Cabrera, and…

 

The armor, Gizmoduck,  _ moved.  _

 

Gyro could’ve sworn his lower jaw was about to detach and hit the floor. Onscreen, his former intern carefully plucked the volatile bulbtech processor out of the suit, and from what little of his face showed beneath the visor, he was just as surprised that the alternate processor…

 

His  _ brain.  _ The kid had rewired the suit to operate off of  _ Cabrera’s brain.  _

 

...Why hadn’t he thought of that???

 

Of course, he hadn’t really expected the intern’s brain to have the processing power of a bag of chips, but there he was, in the middle of the city, operating the most complex piece of technology on earth with nothing more than his own will. 

 

God forbid Gyro ever admit he was wrong, but the realization that he had underestimated Cabrera was pressing down on his ego like a ten pound weight. He’d have to call the intern back to the lab, talk to the kid, run a thousand more experiments and reopen the project and, oh hell,  _ rehire Cabrera  _ to figure this all out…

 

If any of them survived, that is. 

 

“Get rid of the processor!” He screeched, startling everyone in the lab, including himself, as the little red bulb onscreen started flashing. Gizmoduck jumped into action, activating his rotor and rockets (Cabrera was doing all of that on his own, good  _ lord,) _ and taking off into the sky. Back on the ground, whoever was behind the camera had the sense to swivel around and track the armor as it left a brief trail in the sky, skating over the waves of the harbor and up into the sky just barely adjacent to the bin. 

 

Gyro was clinging to the desk now, paying no attention to Lil Bulb’s anxious shuffle atop his shoulder. “Throw it Cabrera, for the love of god throw it-!”

 

Onscreen, the distant glinting suit vanished in a flowering puff of flame and smoke, and Gyro felt a lump rise to his throat and his stomach drop to his feet as the television before him and the sky behind him echoed a deep, thunderous sound. The broadcast zoomed out back to the ground, capturing the red-clad kid as he hopped down from the railing, burying his face in his hands in despair. Next to him, officer Cabrera turned back towards the camera, sinking to the ground with a look of unimaginable shock on her face. 

 

Officer Cabrera. Cabrera had been in the suit. The suit that had just been engulfed in an explosion. 

 

Fenton was dead.  _ Holy god.  _

 

Gyro silently stepped back from the desk, sinking down onto the chaise lounge behind him, numb to the sensation of Lil Bulb mournfully burying his tiny glass head into his creator’s cheek. He mindlessly raised his hand to gently stroke the little robot’s bulb, staring at the television as emergency services entered frame to tend to the civilians at the scene. Several officers and paramedics converged on officer Cabrera, helping her to her feet and wrapping her in a shock blanket as she shut her eyes, shaking her head as if denial would change what she had, what they all had just witnessed. 

 

Gyro’s head dropped, his beak resting in his hand as he struggled to process everything he’d just seen. The suit  _ worked _ , Cabrera had been able to control it without relying on Bulbtech, but…

 

It had killed him.  _ Gyro’s technology had killed him. _

 

Gyro felt sick to his stomach. He’d have to call Scrooge, come clean about Project Blatherskite, own up to the horrific realization that one of his inventions had finally gone off the deep end and killed someone. He’d probably be fired. God, he’d probably have to face Officer Cabrera, look her in the eyes and tell her that he was the one who built the suit that just killed her son…

 

“Look!”

 

He glanced up at the screen, and sat up straighter. The cameraperson, having resumed their intended purpose of following and focusing on Roxanne Featherly as she attempted to approach Beaks (god, of course that bastard would make it out with little more than some bumps and bruises), swiveled around towards the harbor again. The kid was up on the rails again, pointing down at the docks below and shouting, and officer Cabrera and the emergency workers around her all turned to glance over the edge. There was a moment of absolute stillness, and then in one swift motion, officer Cabrera had tossed her shock blanket aside and vaulted over the railing. The cameraperson sprinted after her, coming to the edge and pointing down at the dock, and Gyro nearly fell off the lounge. 

 

On the screen, several feet below the gather crowd, officer Cabrera was checking the vitals of a very soaked, but very much whole, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera. She turned towards the railing,  shouting for the paramedics to join her. 

 

“He’s alive!”

 

He was alive. The suit had been utterly obliterated, but Fenton had survived, had managed to swim back to dry land. 

 

Somewhere behind Gyro, Manny was tapping up a storm in celebration, Lil Bulb leaping off his shoulder to join in the ecstatic chaos. Gyro continued to stare at the screen, watching as the battered former intern (hero, good god he’d done it, he’d taken control of the suit and became a genuine honest to god  _ hero) _ was swarmed by paramedics and carefully loaded onto a backboard, his mother clinging to his hand the whole way. 

 

As the group carefully lifted the injured duck back up to the street and loaded him into the ambulance, with a small and excited voice hastily explaining to the camera that the young man was a Waddle employee who’d been knocked into the water in the chaos (already looking to provide damage control and protect Gizmoduck’s identity, Scrooge was raising those kids right), Gyro finally found his voice. 

 

“Manny, get McDuck on the line. He needs to know about this.”

 

He had no idea how Scrooge would react to the revelation that his lab had accidentally created a superhero, how badly he’d be scolded for keeping this quiet, but that didn’t matter. Gyro was already plotting out the blueprints in his head for the newest model of the Gizmosuit.

 

Hell, maybe the name Gizmoduck would grow on him. 


End file.
